MIT professor argues colleges reinforced slavery

MIT history professor Craig Steven Wilder argued that colleges were
responsible for reinforcing slavery in antebellum America and that
slavery played a pivotal role in establishing American universities.

Drawing upon his book published this September, “Ebony and Ivy: Race,
Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities,” Wilder
described in a lecture on Tuesday what he calls “the extraordinary role
the college played in deciding who could be educated and who couldn’t.”

“We don’t expect to look at colleges and see slavery,” Wilder said.

Wilder stressed that universities have an obligation to confront
their pasts, producing a “three-dimensional” depiction of their
histories as institutions that accept the responsibility of producing
knowledge....